UW Anthropology Professor Publishes Book About the First Coloradans

November 22, 2013 — Scraping tools, bison bone and projectile points are all
remnants that provide Marcel Kornfeld with clues to reconstruct a puzzle of how
the earliest people of Middle Park in Colorado lived 13,000 years ago.

In September, Kornfeld, a professor in the University of
Wyoming’s Department of Anthropology, published a book, titled “The First Rocky
Mountaineers: Coloradans Before Colorado,” through the University of Utah Press.

The 336-page book is based on archaeological research in
Colorado’s Middle Park, a high mountain basin initially encountered by
Europeans in the early 1800s and occupied for centuries before by the Utes. The
book is a pre-history of the region’s earliest people -- Paleo-Indians -- at
the conclusion of the Ice Age.

“This book details more than 20 years of archaeological
research in the high-altitude Middle Park, Colorado,” says Kornfeld, who has
studied the area off and on since 1989. “Human occupation of the area began at
least 13,000 years ago. In addition to the archaeology, the volume looks
closely at the rigors of high-elevation adaptation for prehistoric
hunter-gatherers.”

The earliest Coloradans coped with some of the most extreme
conditions -- high elevations and low temperatures -- of any prehistoric
population in North America, according to Kornfeld. In order to survive, they
had to intensify their food production, construct shelters and make warm
clothing. Middle Park, at its basin level, is approximately 7,200 feet above sea
level, and rises to more than 13,000 feet above sea level at the Continental
Divide.

“The archaeological record of these early Coloradans, while
still meager, provides a wealth of information about life ways in the Rocky
Mountain high country,” Kornfeld says. “This record provides a robust database
for interpreting their life ways and unique adaptations.”

For example, these first inhabitants left a rich record of
shelters, tools and projectile points, as well as food residue in the form of
bison bone. These remnants all date between 8,000 and 13,000 years ago,
Kornfeld says.

“I think they ate a variety of foods, everything from mice
to bison, and a variety of plants, including Saskatoon serviceberries and bitterroot,”
Kornfeld says. “We don’t have any evidence of them eating seeds, for which they
would need grinding equipment that we don’t find.”

Areas in and around Middle Park provide evidence of bison
kill sites, as well as kills of other game, Kornfeld says. Drive lines, marked
by low rock piles, indicate where the Paleo-Indians guided bison and, perhaps,
elk and bighorn sheep, to landscapes where they could be more easily hunted and
killed. Projectile points, knapped from stone, also were discovered in these
areas, indicating these were used to dispatch the animals.

The discovery of bone needles and stone scrapers has led archaeologists
to conclude that Paleo-Indians made sawn clothing.

“Undoubtedly, they also used bison hides, from which they
could have made capes or coats,” he says. “I suspect they also used deer and
sheep hides to make clothing. Deer and bighorn sheep skins are far lighter, and
sheep pelage makes for excellent insulation.”

Although there are no visible structures in Middle Park,
these early people most likely lived in tent-like shelters, an inference based
on distribution of artifacts found in the vicinity of hearths. When people
throw things away, these items typically tend to pile up at walls of a domicile,
Kornfeld says.

“Several of my collaborators have shown this pattern at one
of the sites we investigated,” he says.

The high-altitude conditions of Middle Park are hypoxic,
which means there is a lack of oxygen for living things. In animals, as well as
humans, this minimally results in shortness of breath, but more serious
consequences can lead to death if the person or animal does not return to lower
elevations, Kornfeld says. Modern mountaineers often equip themselves with
oxygen or other paraphernalia to prevent the adverse effects of high altitudes,
he says.

Biological adaptation to such altitudes in other world
regions resulted in physical adaptations such as barrel chests, a condition
that results in more efficient oxygen use, Kornfeld says. Middle Park Paleo-Indians
might have had the same physique, but Kornfeld says his research group has not
found any skeletal remains to make that determination.

“When you live at that height, you have to cope with
biological stressors,” Kornfeld says. “The body must adapt to these conditions.”

The book, which Kornfeld says he wrote to be accessible to a
broad audience as well as be usable in the classroom, is available on Amazon
for $58.50. The book has garnered some good early reviews.

“(This is) a significant contribution. Rocky Mountain
archaeology long received short shrift, yet now that more and more scientists
are engaging in it, we are learning much more than we could have imagined a
half-century ago about the range of forager adaptations in North American
settings,” wrote Bonnie Pitblado, the Robert E. and Virginia Bell Endowed
Professor in Anthropological Archaeology at the University of Oklahoma, and author
of “Late Paleoindian Occupation of the Southern Rocky Mountains.”

During nearly 40 years of research, Kornfeld has written 10
books and numerous articles about Rocky Mountain and Plains archaeology and
prehistory. He works closely with avocational archaeologists throughout North
America.

“Prehistory of the first Americans in Middle Park is a part
of the human story of flexibility, resilience and adaptation to changing
environments through a uniquely human trait -- culture,” Kornfeld says. “We may
never know the entire story, but every part of it has lessons as we venture
into the future.”